1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer and a scanner capable of communicating with an information processing device utilizing a file sharing protocol.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many personal computers (hereafter termed PC) are capable of performing communication utilizing a file sharing protocol. For example, Windows (registered trademark) of the Microsoft Corporation is capable of performing communication utilizing the WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) file sharing protocol.
A printer that communicates with a PC utilizing the WebDAV protocol is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-373064. The printer creates a print folder, and sends a folder address thereof to the PC. The PC can thus display a folder object corresponding to the folder address from the printer. A user can cause a data file of a print subject to be stored in the folder object. In this case, the PC sends the data file and a data file storage command to the printer. When the printer receives the data file storage command, the printer prints the data file.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-242781 does not utilize a file sharing protocol, but discloses a technique utilizing a hot folder application. The hot folder application is installed in a PC. A user can create a hot folder in the PC, the hot folder being associated with a network address of a printer. Further, the user can store a print setting data file in the hot folder, print setting data being described in the print setting data file. When a data file of a print subject is stored in the hot folder, the PC adds the print setting data file that is being stored in the hot folder to the data file of the print subject, and sends this to the printer. The printer can thus print the data file in accordance with the print setting data file from the PC.